Balan Wonderworld is a new IP belonged to Square Enix, the company known for working in popular franchises such as Final Fantasy, Kingdom hearts, Nier, etc.
Balan wonderworld was developed to be the next big name in terms of 3D platforming and it was higly anticipated by many duo to two major names. The game's director was none other than Yuji Naka The original creator of Sonic the hedgehog and the former head of SEGA's Sonic team . At the same time another major name working on the project was none other than Naoto Oshima the designer of Sonic the hedgehog .
These two former SEGA employees had worked on other projects after they left SEGA but they came together in 2018 and created the Balan Company who as of the writting of this is a subsidiary team of Square Enix
Balan Wonderworld is their first game release,and is available for all consoles. The mascot of the franchise AKA Balan had a positive reception and the trailer of the game showed,that this game was here to stay .
The Game was released in 2 editions
Standard Edition
Includes the game , and a train ticket with Balans sign inviting the player to the show
Collector Edition AKA Showtime
Includes the game with the ticket,Game's Artbook, CD with the soundrtacks, a Pin ,and a tote bag
Square Enix announced and specified that both the Pin and the Audio CD will be available to purchase in the future from their official store. However the tote bag and the artbook will not be sold individually
and the only way to obtain them is through the showtime collection. The game received a demo near the end of January and it was not received as good as the company would 've wanted. The game was released end
of March and alongside it there was an online release of a novel called Balan Wonderworld: Maestor of Mystery, Theatre of Wonders.
Story of the Game
The story of the game is one of the game's weaknesses as it doesnt give the player much about it. The game opens with a cutscene where the playable characters of the game based on the gender selection
(Leo Craig for male and Emma Cole for female) who both seemed to be upset and wonder arround. They then come across an abadoned building called The wonderworld and they decide to check it out
Keep in mind they re not together, while they check on the buulding they come across this magical creature known as Balan who greets them. He tells them that they re missing their hearts and then
proceeds to dance arround spin here and there and absorbs them inside an area. The game then drops the player in a location called the isle of Tims where the player can select a level to play. Each
level represents an NPC who needs help. The next form of lore in the game comes in the form of cutscenes without dialogue of an event happening during a level. The cutscene is triggered at the end
of each levels act2 and another one after the boss level is cleared. Yuji Naka in an interview stated that he prefered not to give dialogue in these cutscenes so that each player can experience the
game on themselves and have their own version of story. The problem with this is that the novel does a fantastic job on explaining things and what is happening but the game does not. It explain what
your heros purpose is, who and what Lance wants( the enemy of the game), what the boss are and what each of the cutscenes wanted to showcase. The point is that the game doesnt give any clear story elements
and that is something bad considering this was published as a full price triple A game.
To explain the story based on the game, its something along the line of the citizens having an incident that drops their mood and upon succesfully defeating their boss room, they found something to be aspire from.
the books explanation is that Lance who was supposed to be a good guy helping people in the wonderworld decided he wanted them to stay with him forever, he brought them misserable effects to increase their negatives
emotions and told them that Balan is the actual bad guy. They citizens then were able to transform into monster in order to prevent Balan from entering their safe space. That is a very brief description
In spite of the fact that the games story wasnt there, in a platforming game the story always comes second to gameplay. For example famous platformers are extremely good despite the story being weak.
In games like Super Mario the story is about Princess Peach being constantly abduct by Bowser, Or games like Crash Bandicoot who was always going around to areas to defeat dr Cortex. There's
plenty of examples similar to this(Spyro,Scrat etc) but no need to look for more as the point was made. Does the gameplay help Balan's case???
General Gameplay (buttons reference for the Playstation)
As mention the players are placed in the isle of Tims where they can select a level. Theres a total of 12 worlds,each having an Act 1, an Act 2, a boss level and an Act3 that is available after the final boss
is defeated. In the isle of Tims, the players can breed their Tims and nothing more. The more Tims you breed the more they built a thing call tower of happiness which only rewards the player with an achievement
Ever since the trailer was revealed the Game kept on advertising and having the phrase: More than 80 costumes to choose from . The developers wanted to give players as many tools as they could
and came up with the idea of costumes that each has its own unique ability. Some of these skins have beatiful designs while some other look very uninspired. For example you have a red hoover skin, and then
you have blue hoover. Another problem with the skins is the fact that some of them are just reskins of others but slihgtly better than the previous one. There's a cat skin that allows the player to move
on air for 3-5 steps before landing. At the same time there's a snow deer costume that allows you to do 4-6 steps on air but at the same time each step takes the player higher and higher. Other skins like
chess piece, the Launcher and the robot shoot enemies when they re not moving. Their diference is that the launcher shoots one heavy attack, the robot shoots three at a time (left, straight,right) and the chess
piece shoots at 4 different locations (left,front,right,back). Last but not least in terms of the skins, it's their usage. Most of them are useful for their level only, others are just point blank useless and
then theres like five of them that are geerally good. Before elaborating i would like to specify that unlike most, i tried to find usage for some before going out of my way to call them bad. For example a popular
opinion has the mouse with the key tail being one of the worst since its usage is to open boxes that have keys spawn 10 meters next to the box. In that logic yes its useless, BUT in secret acts 3 where the keys are hidden
the ability is really usefull. Believe me when i say i try to find usages in others. To elaborate about the ocasional skins heres a brief list with some skins.
Rail Runner (train)
usefull only in Chapter 9 to run on rails
Water Blaster
only used to shut the fire which is only available in chapter 11
Ladderman
summons a ladder only on ladder squares
Dynamic Dolphin and JellyJolt
only used to travel through water in chapter 2
useless Costumes are costumes that do nothing or that were made for the purpose of adding plus 1 to the costume sum These are:
Box Fox
turns into a box quote whenever it feels like it
metal Bad Boy,happy horn,Amadeus,
only used to play music when stand on an area for 6 gems
Multi ability jumping skins
they all share the same ability of either double or triple jump
Multi ability jump and crush skins
they all share the same ability of jumping up and landing with a body slam on the ground
The major problem of the game is the desicion to make the game a three button game. The game allows the player to use the joystick to manuver around in the environment. The player can use L1 and R1
to manuver through the 3 costumes the player has on his costume list and last but not least the rest of the buttons(Square,X,Triangle,Circle,R2 & L2) are used to either jump or use a specific costume ability.
By specific Costume ability means that there are costumes whose ability might take away the ability of jumping from the player. In a 3D platforming game the power up take away the most basic movement.
Costumes like dainty dragon, teleporter, sickle slinger,lizard, punking puncher and plenty of others take away jumping and its replace mostly with an attack. While in the topic of not having plenty of buttons
to use , and skins taking away the power of jumping, there are also skins who require the player to stop his movement in order for the power to be triggered. Costumes that shoot enemies such as Launcher,Laser launcher
and Quad Cannon request the player to stand still for the weapons to shoot.
The combat of the game is simple. You can defeat an enemy while in costume. You can either use the costumes ability as an attack or Jump on top of their heads given the fact that the enemy doesnt have spikes on top
of them and that the costumes allows jumping. Main Boss fights require the player to discover three differet ways of attacking them to gain maximum rewards. These 3 ways will have to be pbtain by the 2 costumes each level has
The one button mechanic is also present at main menuoutside of the game. Normaly games allow the player to access a location with X and leave by pressing O. In this game everything can be done with every button.
This choice was heavily critisized during the demo but somehow made it into the final product.
MiniGames
The game has a total of 5 mini games of 2 categories. The player will most likely encounter atleast 1 in every level. The first category is the category that rewards they player with gems
They can be found in the levels and the player will need a key to access them. These include the following sport minigames where in each of them you have three tries :
Golfer
Try to shoot the ball in the hole. The more you scre the better
Footballer
Its a penalty shootout
Baseballer
Hit the ball, and aim for a homerun
Bowler
try to through as many pins as possible
The second form of minigame is the quick time events known as Balan's bout. The player can access these minigames when they come across a golden Balan hat. During a Balan Bount a cinematic occurs
where Balan will either fly and destroy items or have an encounter with Lance. The player has to press a button when a fade out version of balans is excactly the same and on top of the actual Balan.
In most cases the amount of times needed is five. Upon succesfully gaining 5 excellents the player will have a double ultiplier on each of their gems and most importantly will receive a golden Balan statue
Upon receiving the golden statue the next time you play the level The Balans hat representing Balans bout will have its natural colors and wont be golden.
Collectables
There are 3 types of collectables.
Gems
Golden Balan Statues
Colorful Balan Statues
Collectables are meant to encourage player to go out of their way to search for them in order to complete the game. In most of the cases they also reward the playes with trophies and in game rewards, whether
they are cutscenes (eg Little Nighmares 2),bonus levels (Spyro 2 Ryptos rage(dragon shores)),weapons(Kingdom Hearts 3 (Grand Chef,Classic Tone,ultima blade), or even skills (Ghost Of Tsushima).
In this game they re just there. To elaborate , the statues are pretty much the same. There's a total of 228 golden statues, that can be found in Acts1,2 and boss Levels, and theres a total of 72 Colorful ones
and upon collecting them all, the player will be rewarded with a 30 second cutscene of the statues making a dance choreogrphy.
The gems on the other side alongside a ritual will reward the player with the most usefull costume which is Balan's outfit. The Gems are placed everywhere in the maps and they re innobvious places. Theres 5 types
of gems. Yellow,Red,Blue,Purple and Rainbow.The first four mention are easily obtain as they are located in the path of the player. Meanwhile the Rainbow ones are harder to get. You can get them upon replaying an
already defeated stage(act1,2) or the later ulocked act3 and the other way is to come across a hidden Tim Statue that rewards the player with a number of 1 to 3 rainbow gems.
The Ritual (Balan Skin)
All the player needs is atleast 2 Tims and plenty of gems. Step1:
While in the isle of Tims feed the Tim statue with rainbow gems until it request for a Tim with a crown. Step2:
Get 2 Tims and feed them Gems of Red Purple and Blue in any order. The more you feed a Tim with gems of 1 colour they receive a badge on them representing the colour. Have 2 of them with all three badges.
Once both of them have the three marks feed one of them yellow gems in order for them to become huge. This means that that Tim can lay an Egg. Pick up the small Tim and throw him on top of the other. This
will cause the fat Tim to lay an Egg. The egg will then hatch a Tim With crown, if not repeat the process until a crowned Tim is born. When he does born, feed him Gems until he become mature enough to be able
to be picked up. Step3:
Present the King Tim to the statue. The statue will then transform to the Ultimate Tim and fly you all the way up to an island to get the Balan Costume.
In the case of the player losing the Balan skin, they re require to feed the ultimte Tim 10 rainbow gems for him to fly them back to the island.
You cannot store more than 1 Balan skin ,in the wardrobe so do not feed the Tim again if you already have the suit
if you own 10 plus rainbow gems and go to the statue, he ll take all of the gems not just 10.
Ultimate Tim will always remember how many gems he is been fed. This means you can give him Gems at any time and when reach 10 he ll fly up to the island.
As mention the players are placed in the isle of Tims where they can select a level. Theres a total of 12 worlds,each having an Act 1, an Act 2, a boss level and an Act3 that is available after the final boss
is defeated. In the isle of Tims, the players can breed their Tims and nothing more. The more Tims you breed the more they built a thing call tower of happiness which only rewards the player with an achievement
Ever since the trailer was revealed the Game kept on advertising and having the phrase: 